Gaijin Tonic

I’ve been reading “Japrocksampler” by Julian Cope (the eccentric singer, writer and acid-frazzled archaeologist.) It’s an enjoyable history of Japan’s unheralded rock mavericks, groundbreaking musicians who absorbed American rock n’ roll in the postwar years, and fed it through a filter of Japanese thought, culture and experience, to make something entirely new and weird.

Some of the records mentioned, from the likes of Brain Police and Flower Travellin’ Band (pictured on the book cover, riding motorbikes in the nude) sound utterly mental, and I’m eager to get down to the record shop and pick some of them up (even though they’re fairly obscure, even in Japan.)
You probably won’t have heard of most of these guys. TV and radio in Japan have rarely given exposure to independent or alternative artists, and even now only give airtime to those signed to a handful of major labels and agencies. And yet, if your explore the underground clubs of Koenji or Shimokitazawa, you would have a good chance of seeing some astonishing and unique musicians.
Japrocksampler is a good introduction to Japanese rock and roll, and is greatly helped by Cope’s enthusiastic, hyperbolic writing style.
He’s even started a website about obscure Japanese music which you can check out here.

One advantage of living in a city as rammed with people as Tokyo, is that you can organize any kind of event, safe in the knowledge that people will show up, no matter how weird or esoteric it is. In a city of twelve million people, you could throw a German polka music party, and expect a full house.
One place which proves this theory is Shinjuku’s excellent Club Acid Tokyo, where each night is themed around a completely different kind of music. Over the weekend I went to “Bowie Night,” where they strictly played only songs by David Bowie for the whole night. This is a fantastic concept if you’re into The Thin White Duke, but it’s like Guantanamo Bay if you’re not. Fortunately, I’m partial to a bit of Bowie, and had a fine time grooving to “Heroes” on the dancefloor.

It’s a credit to Bowie’s long and varied career that I wasn’t bored by the music once. I left the club with a renewed respect for the dude- there aren’t many artists who could fill up a DJ’s six-hour set-list without getting repetitive. I’m a big Ramones fan but I’d grow tired of hearing “1.2.3.4!” after a couple of hours. (…Or perhaps not.)
You couldn’t get away with an event like Bowie Night in most countries, but such is the obsessiveness and dedication of Japanese fans (who eagerly blow their savings on rare B-Side compilations and T-shirts of their favourite musicians), that the crowd in Club Acid were loving it.
Once, Club Acid even had a night entirely dedicated to the 80s Goth group Bauhaus, I kid thee not. That is very obscure indeed, but it must surely have brought smiles to the faces of the small cluster of Bauhaus fans living in Tokyo, (perhaps for the first time in their miserable lives.)

When I go to to clubs and gigs around Tokyo, I usually pick up flyers for upcoming events. These phantasmagorical flyers, hastily designed by eccentric art-school graduates and drug-addled musicians, often turn out to be more spectacular than the events themselves.
Just the names of the events, musicians and DJs, can be surprising. For example…

“MONKEEEEEE FUUUUUUCK!” is an eye-catching name if ever I’ve seen one. If that’s not enough, “Fuck Masta Fuck” is surely the best DJ name ever.
Similarly offensive is the following flyer for Club Mass, where you can listen to “wanky techno” courtesy of the delightfully-named “DJ Cunt”.

There’s also the silly “DJ Cak”…

…and last but not least, the unbelievable “VJ Pile of Dog Shit.” He shouldn’t be so hard on himself.

Let’s hope they all team up for a song, appear on “The Disney Club” and top the billboard charts (”…and at number one this week is DJs Fuck Masta Fuck, Cak, Pile of Dog Shit and Cunt!”)

As well as this colourful use of the English language, there are also some amusing misspellings on Japanese nightclub flyers, as you can see below.

This flyer intructs us to “bring bring” but what is it that we’re supposed to be bringing? Bring a bottle? Bring the noise? Bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia?

I’m not sure that people will be lining up to hear this “bland new mix.” It sounds as if they’ll be spinning Enya and Kenny G all night.

The flyer below appears to be promising discounts for customers who bring kitchen equipment.

And the words aren’t all that’s freaky on Japanese flyers, the illustrations are equally mind-blowing, like the two, frankly disturbing ones below.

Who knows what kind of antics go on at those parties, but I’m sure they’re fun for all the family. Don’t forget to bring Granny!

I’ve discovered another funky new Japanese band, charmingly called the “Chip Shop Boyz.” While mooching around a record shop I spotted the ace CD cover above, and decided to have a listen on the headphones. All the songs turned out to be versions of famous tunes, that sound like they’ve come from computer games circa 1987. The Chip Shop Boyz have a winning sound that is idiosyncratically Japanese. Where else can you groove to a Gameboy version of “Doo-Wah Diddy”?
Here’s their website.

Time for another amazing and amusing nightclub flyer. The party below, an wild and eccentric costume event organized by “Tokyo Decadance,” appeals to me chiefly because the flyer says “Alluring ladies and randy gentlemen need to enter pleasing.” Who could resist such a sales pitch?

Here’s a link to the Tokyo Decadence website. Their parties look pretty damn mental. I must go!

I’ve found another contender for the mantle of Japan’s most ridiculously named DJ. “DJ Cak” is hot on the heels of “DJ C*nt” and “DJ Pile of Dog Sh*t”

Me and a buddy went to a Japanese hip-hop club the other day, drawn in by the flyer above. Can you guess why?
I have to say, the women in this club were throwing down some eyeball-scorchingly raunchy dance-moves. Evidently they’d seen a couple of sleazy “2 Live Cru” videos on MTV and taken them way too seriously, but I wasn’t complaining. These dance-hall divas were also doing some impressive acrobatics which resembled a jaw-dropping mixture of Flashdance and the Chinese State Circus, throwing themselves all over the room, body-popping, bouncing off walls, and waving their arses in the air. The only ladies who weren’t dancing were in wheelchairs, or hobbling around on crutches, apparently injured while attempting overly-ambitious dancefloor stunts.
Luckily I had my trusty disposable camera at hand!

*Note the crutch behind the couple dirty-dancing in the last picture!

I’ve decided to champion the amazing, mental band “Sex Virgin Killer”, since no-one else seems to have written about them in English. I recently discovered them, initially intrigued by their eye-catching name, but I soon learned that they are a pretty mind-blowing and outrageous act. Sex Virgin Killer are more “rock n’ roll” than anyone else around right now: In addition to their confrontational name, they play very loud guitars, ride motorbikes, have vast multi-coloured haircuts like Sigue Sigue Sputnik, and I genuinely can’t tell whether they’re boys or girls. They even keep up the noble tradition of smashing up their instruments and setting fire to things on stage. You most certainly wouldn’t trust these guys to babysit your kids.

Sex Virgin Killer can be seen playing live at the “Death Camp 2007″ festival in Niigata in a couple of weeks, alongside such acts as “Illegal Abortion”, “Little Bastards”, “Stubborn Father”, and “Enema.”
They’re sure to put on a good show, judging by the video below of their delightful little ditty, “Vagina F*cker.”

Here’s a link to the Sex Virgin Killer Official Website where you can learn of CD releases and live dates.
Sex Virgin Killer are the wildest loonies in Japanese rock right now so if there’s any justice, they’ll be filling stadiums this time next year. But, based on my previous predictions, they’re more likely to be filling gas-tanks. I expected big things of the scantily-clad, all-girl hardcore-punk group Anadorei (”anal slave,”) who made the album “Pussy Cannibal Holocaust” and they didn’t exactly storm the Billboard charts.

Here’s another 80s Japanese music video, by Kera, the singer from the new wave group Uchoten. He’s endearingly insane, and in this song he’s complaining about the volume of his neighbour’s television. Eccentric video.

This is a Japanese indie-rock CD. Nice title- I admire their honesty!